


Cost of Interest

by Metis_Ink



Series: Home of the Hyland Knights [2]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, cameos from berserians, college/high school because non-chronological order, rose just kind of wants to fight everyone so it was inevitable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 12:58:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7052725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metis_Ink/pseuds/Metis_Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My professor wanted to know where I got my tie,” Dezel tells her. He sounds horrified and rueful. Rose is ecstatic.</p><p>“I’m gonna sell them online and pay off my student loans,” Rose tells him. They’re sitting in the quad at one of the tables where none of their friends can interrupt their cake celebration. Normally she’d be fine with it, but Dezel loves strawberry cake. He's kind of her boyfriend now so that's pretty important. “People fucking love dogs.”</p><p>Rose vs. Romance: a Saga</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cost of Interest

**Author's Note:**

> A commission for a Dezerose followup on the Method Acting universe! They sort of smashed their way into the last fic but aaaayyyy they're here now! This was really fun because Rose was just. Really wild as a teenager. It takes a certain kind of power to battle Dezel.
> 
> So here's a giant can of sap and Wham! and bacon.

If one were to ask around campus, many would say that Rose stopped playing lacrosse because of the time she nearly broke Symonne’s leg. Their unfriendly rivals at Rolance Tech had gone one step too far on that infamous game and decided to bait Hyland’s star player. Their loophole plan worked, the committee kicked Rose off the team, and she was never to be seen on a lacrosse field again.

This is a lie. Rose quit the team to pursue business. Hyland just loves to find reasons hate Rolance.

If one were to dig deeper into Hyland gossip, they might discover about how Rose used to lead a gang in high school. They called themselves the Scattered Bones and prowled the streets with red-stained weapons and a smile for every kill. Untouchable, because of their ability to twist words and manipulate the social politics of Hyland to their favor.

This is also a lie. The Sparrowfeathers (typoed and exaggerated to outstanding proportions) were a patisserie club. Rose was only the president because of her ability blast profits through the roof rather than her bread-making abilities. She might have accidentally sliced a customer’s finger with a knife to explain some of the fuel to the fire.

If one _really, really_ cared and asked about Rose’s love life, far too many would argue that Rose ate alive every man and woman that approached her. The less dramatic ones would say that any partner wouldn’t be able to handle her overwhelming personality for more than a week. As smooth-talking and charming as Rose is for business purposes, she’s a steamroller with an agenda.

This, surprisingly, is also a lie. Dezel has been dating her for a month and he’s completely fine.

“I’m uncomfortable.”

“Shut up, you’re fine,” Rose adjusts the tie so that it hugs tight against Dezel’s neck. Satisfied, she places his hand against the end of it, over an edited picture of Steve Irwin as a dog. “Okay now press the button.” She presses Dezel’s finger against Steve’s Labrador face.

Dezel’s face scrunches up in a way in which he very much, of all certainty does _not_ want to press the button and then presses the button. Rose grins as the tune begins to play.

“What the… What the hell?” Dezel grabs at the tie in horror. “What is this?”

“I made it,” Rose simply says. “It’s my monthaversay present to you! I’m going to patent it and sell it as the Dezel Strangler and horrible sons and daughters around the world will go crazy for it on father’s day. And terrible friends when they’re buying white elephant gifts. And wonderful significant others on Valentine’s Day. Because it’s amazing.”

“It’s a chorus of dogs barking Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” Dezel narrates, tone defeated as if he’s not sure what he expected, really.

Rose’s smile is a little weary, which she tries to cover up even though she knows Dezel can’t see it. It always feels like he knows, anyway. She’s not nervous. Especially not since she’s got Dezel’s real present in her jacket pocket, which she can pull out and reveal to him at any moment. There’s no way she’s self-conscious. Rose isn’t self-conscious. Especially not to Dezel.

She’s done this all the time for the years they’ve been friends. It’s just that now that when she reassures to herself that _it’s okay, he loves me anyway_ , it means something completely different.

“Well, you haven’t stopped it yet,” Rose assures, to herself just as much as to Dezel.

“Maybe it’s because I don’t know _how_ ,” Dezel growls. “This is why Maotelus has been yapping so much lately, isn’t it? You were _making_ him.”

Rose laughs. “You love it! Maotelus is gonna be so happy!”

“Don’t harass our dog,” Dezel tells her, as the tie barks to the tune of _you make the sun shine brighter than Doris Day_. “Shit, did you mix the entire song?”

“With some Sparrowfeather assistance, we can do anything,” Rose recites proudly. “Even for emo boyfriends.”

“Thanks.” The suddenness of it catches Rose off-guard. Dezel presses the button again to silence the tie (that fucking liar), and loosens it so that he’s not choking anymore. Still, he doesn’t take it off. Rose _told_ him what it looks like, and for god’s sake, Dezel has a _lab_ in less than an hour. Rose is his assistant, she knows he can’t wear that there.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. The only thing that’s changed about their relationship since that day in the park is that they hold hands sometimes and they can get free food at cafes on couple’s days. Neither of them are really too keen on toeing across the line between platonic and romantic love right now, so they’re kind of stuck at this mutual sense noncommunication.

This is to say that, in retrospect, Dezel has always played favorites with her. He always wears whatever crap she makes whether it’s shoes with tiny umbrellas or a shirt made up of 10 different kinds of pants. He eats her bacon-flavored chocolate and holds signs with stupid-looking birds for promotional reasons.

People tell her it’s because he cares about her, which makes her flustered and makes jokes about it at her own expense. But now she _really_ notices how much he cares for her. And not just in a platonic way.

Dezel must sense her embarrassment at this, because he’s lit like a stop light right now. It scares her sometimes, how much he can see without even looking.

She jumps when he puts a hand on her shoulder. Dezel freezes like a deer in the headlights. Not good. In a charge of emotionally-fueled intelligence, Rose fists her hands into Dezel’s stupid leather jacket so he can’t escape and sputters something that’s supposed to be, “A thank-you from Dezel, I must be so special!” but comes out more like a very breathy and suggestive, “Thank god for special Dezel.”

Her hand must have hit the tie, because it starts barking _you put the boom boom into my heart_ and holy shit she does not need this right now. It takes her two seconds to realize Dezel is frozen because they’re practically embracing each other, and another two seconds to be unable to prepare for when Dezel kisses her forehead.

“Please stop calling it monthaversary,” Dezel says to her in a way that is clearly meant to say something completely different in his head.

“You have to hold my hand for the rest of the day,” Rose says. It’s not really meant to be bargain; she just wanted to ask. But Dezel takes it as a bargain anyways and does so anyways.

His hand is hot and sweaty and she’s pretty sure it’s not because of the heat.

 

* * *

 

There’s a story behind this. Rose hates stories; they’re a waste of time and nothing gets done when someone adds a story to their excuse. However, as a businesswoman, she has to love stories to an extent, so this all started at a bakery.

“Oh shit,” Roukurou-The-Actual-Baker says to her face the minute she strides through the door. “DEZ, THE MEAT GIRL IS BACK.”

“Come on! I can be much better than _meat girl_!” Rose protests. The other shops gave her much more creative names like Muffin Satan and Hurricane Rosemary (which is not her name, but the horror movie reference adds a nice touch).

But before she can mention this, the specially-assigned Rose coordinator (or whatever they’re calling him) strides out of the back room with a piece of paper. It’s her school photo with a X over her face, captioned _No independent advertising_ with _NO ROSES_ added to the side in thick red marker.

Rose’s eye twitches. Dezel is a blind cashier and first person she’s talked to at this bakery, which for some reason told all of the other employees he was the best one to get rid of her. Well, _talk_ is a strong word. Dezel basically threw her out of the bakery without even a mutter or thanks for her time. Maybe these people just haven’t figured that maybe this asshole is the reason she keeps coming back.

“This is you,” he tells Rose, slapping the piece of paper as if he’s a bitter 50-year-old man and not in high school just like Rose. “It means you’re not allowed here.”

“Just hear me out, okay?” Rose ignores him and drops her tray onto the bakery counter. Eizen has left, probably to get their manager or something, so Rose prepares her business smile. “Too bitter for a sugary breakfast? Too broke for a full-course lunch? Here’s your answer!” She swings her hands to her product. “BACON BITES!”

“That’s a meat muffin,” Dezel tells her, unfazed.

“They’re bacon bites,” Rose tells him. “I promise, they’re Sparrowfeather quality guaranteed. Nothing else is like this!”

“Bird’s Nest.” Rose blinks at him. “It’s a bread muffin with ham, cheese, onion, carrot, and a boiled quail’s egg. You’re a little late to the party.”

“Yeeeeaaaahhhh….” Fuck, fuck, how did she not know about that? “But you’re not selling it here.”

“Because we already have the ham and cheese croissants. We don’t need your product,” Dezel clarifies, unmoving. He then reaches behind the counter and pulls out a roll of tape so he can stick the NO ROSES sign to the window. “You can go now.”

Rose scowls at him. “What if I want to buy your stupid ham and cheese croissants? What, are you just going to _deny payment_ ? That’s not good business, _Dez_.”

“You’re a special case,” Dezel tells her, and then promptly kicks her out of the store.

 

* * *

 

At study group, Rose presses the button on Dezel’s tie, and Maotelus’ eager barking serenades the room. Sorey and Lailah crack up, Mikleo and Edna sigh, Alisha wants to buy it, and Zaveid mournfully contemplates, “Remember when we were all single?” as Dezel scrambles to switch it off.

“Zaveid,” Dezel says, “how this is any different than how things used to be?” Whether he’s mentioning Star Wars day or the bear cookies, Rose doesn’t know.

“You didn’t use to _hold hands under the table_ ,” Zaveid snaps back.

“ _They_ hold hands under the table.” Rose waves to Sorey and Mikleo across the room.

“No we don’t,” Sorey tells her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mikleo looks very offended with both of their hands visible and free of secret hand-holding.

“They lock ankles,” Edna says, to which Mikleo sputters. “It’s more discreet and disgusting.”

“Don’t try it!” Zaveid tells Rose, except Dezel suddenly goes rigid as stone. “Oh my god.”

“Oh my god,” Dezel echoes, as Rose tugs at his ankle with hers. She’s staring at his hands, where he’s gripping his pencil tight enough to break, but her mind is a buzz of _this is either the worst or the best idea I’ve ever heard oh my god he’s moving holy shit_ —

Zaveid looks ready to say more, but Alisha, his only faithful student, sadly announces, “Sorey and I have orchestra at seven. Can we finish up to question 45 before then?”

“Of course,” Zaveid says, but only by the skin of his teeth. It’s only that Rose’s only excuse for not subtly flirting with her boyfriend flies out the window, and nothing is able to force her to take her ankle off of Dezel’s now.

She looks at the numbers in front of her. This is calculus. She’s _good_ at calculus, but all she can think about now is if Dezel will comply if she swings their legs around a bit.

He doesn’t. Rose draws a little heart on his hand instead, and he helps her with her Italian homework in retaliation.

 

* * *

 

Rose (fifteen, first-string lacrosse player, business professional) throws a bouquet of roses into the bakery out of spite the next day.

Except she tagged it _To Dezel_ , and Magilou-The-Part-Timer had been working the counter that day and thought she was Dezel’s girlfriend. The Rose Ban, she assumes, is a joke and would be _incredibly stupid_ to uphold by her standards. She allows Rose into the store just to make Dezel’s life worse.

“I’m here to eat your nasty croissants,” she tells Dezel when he comes out of the back. She even has the money in hand.

He kicks her out.

Foolish, to think it would stop her.

She comes back the next day. And the next day. And the next. And eventually, it becomes a game. Dezel tries to ban her from the store, and then some other employee allows her back in. Dezel laminates the NO ROSES sign, and the manager takes it down thinking it’s a pun-related prank. Dezel warns the entire bakery staff about her, but half of them aren’t serious enough to fully live up the warning.

By the time the chalkboard outside has had her face horribly drawn and crossed out three times that week, it’s actually starting to get pretty fun.

“Are you sure you’re not just hung up on this particular store?” asks Sorey, who has been her best friend ever since she kidnapped him from Spirit Day during freshman year. This is before Sorey got his braces off and Mikleo started dyeing his hair, so looking back on it is a little weird. Rose, on the other hand, is fifteen with blue and pink nail polish and dinosaurs for earrings. She might also have a purple streak in her hair. Maybe two.

“He’s challenging me, Sorey.” Next to her friend, Mikleo rolls his eyes. “I refuse to be the face of failure!”

“How did you get that picture of him?” Mikleo asks, point down at her NO DEZELS shirt.

“Last year’s yearbook,” Rose explains, finishing her burger. “Guy’s a senior this year.”

“You realize he can’t see it?” Mikleo says, but before Rose can reply, trying to choose between _Shut up_ and _How did you know he was blind?_ Sorey interjects.

“Yeah, he’s a senior,” he tells her, with a lot of sureness for someone who supposedly has never met the guy. Or— “What’s that look for? He tutors me in braille.”

“What,” Rose says. She looks between him and Mikleo for some sort of objection, but instead of annoyance, Mikleo is looking sadly into his chicken nuggets. Oh. Right. The half-blind thing. She’s about to say something to him, but something else catches her mind. “Does he talk about me?”

“Um.” Sorey swallows. “I’m not sure if I should talk about how—”

“He _does_?” Rose yells. “What does he say? Is he talking shit about me?”

Sorey turns to look at Mikleo, who’s silently nibbling on his chicken nuggets that he would usually be complaining about every other day. With no avail at extra advice from his friend, Sorey sighs and says. “I think you guys should talk it out. Dezel usually likes to take things steady, and I’m sure you’ll see he likes you a lot more than you think if you take a minute to slow down for him.”

“Slow down with _what_?” Rose demands. “We fight over… about…” Actually, they’re really just fighting for the heck of it by now, but that’s not the point. “What does he want?”

“Maybe don’t go try to invade the bakery every day?” Sorey suggests, patting Mikleo on the back to comfort him about whatever. “Give him some time to think.”

Rose opens her mouth to rebuke him. _To think of a BATTLE STRATEGY, you mean!_ Or _HE DOESN’T THINK!_ Except Rose thinks this time too. Being impulsive is one of the flaws she’s trying to grow out of, especially since that incident with the knife almost costing her the Sparrowfeathers.

So maybe she has been pretty hasty with the whole War Against A Bakery (specifically Dezel) thing. Just a bit.

“Fine,” Rose tells Sorey, to which he sighs in relief. “I’ll wait a week. One week!”

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry,” Rose says on the bus while they go to lunch. She’s still holding Dezel’s hand, because he promised and she’s going to milk that up for as long as she can, and as long as he can’t escape her, she’ll say whatever she wants. “For bullying you when we first met.”

“You didn’t bully me, you were fifteen,” Dezel tells her. She loosens her hand a bit to see if he’ll let her go, but he holds onto her. It makes her breath hitch. She’s sure Dezel hears it, but she’ll leave it to him to question why. Rose is mean like that.

“Just because you were eighteen doesn’t mean you can’t be bullied by underclassmen.” Rose pokes his side where she knows he’s ticklish, and Dezel yelps back. “It wasn’t fair of me to harass you like that constantly and _I’m sorry_.”

Dezel turns to her like it means something for her to just acknowledge that he’s dumbfounded by this. Rose isn’t good with apologizing. She made Alisha cry four times in the first semester they knew each other, but that was just because Sorey was in the hospital at the time. It took her two months to apologize after some serious talk-down from Dezel.

Dezel himself, however, rarely gets these apologies. He usually knows when Rose feels sorry about something she’s done and knocks her over the head to tell her to get over it. Dezel puts up with a lot of crap for her. It’s why she kept coming back to him in the first place.

“You were fun to hang out with,” Rose mutters under her breath.

“Yes, I got that after I kept asking you to leave the bakery, and you said, “Nah, this is fun,” like a two-year-old,” Dezel reminds her.

“Come on, Dezel, I’m trying to apologize! Give me a break here,” she whines.

“You already apologized five years ago,” Dezel tells her.

“Yeah, well I feel bad about it again, so I’m apologizing now too!” Rose tells him.

When he doesn’t respond, she decides it’s time to take out the big guns.

“Fine, don’t accept it.” She then fishes a pen out of her bag and pulls Dezel’s hand out to write on it. Dezel, a victim of dick-drawing too many times, struggles against her. “It’s not a penis, I swear!” Rose yells as she holds tight onto Dezel’s flailing arm.

“Then what is it!?” Dezel snaps back. Rose swings her leg over his and screams as she nails his arm into place so he can properly feel her writing. The whole bus is looking at them now, even some Rolance dickbags up front are laughing. Shut up, dickbags, this is a romantic moment.

“Just trust me okay?!” And then Rose starts to draw.

After a few moments of her moving across his arm, Dezel relaxes against her, realizing her intent. He becomes more focused on unfeeling what she’s drawing than on the fact that their legs are pretzeled and his arm is basically against her boob so that when she’s done, he doesn’t move for a couple moments.

He takes in the message for a second, touching where the dots run across his forearm. “Did you really write _Prom?_ at the end? Really?”

It’s an inside joke. It was supposed to distract Rose from the rest of what she wrote. “Stop avoiding the rest of it,” she says hypocritically.

“I’m not saying the rest of it outloud,” Dezel tells her. “You're lucky I was paying attention to the indents; you wrote it in braille. Just because you didn’t want anyone else to see it.”

“But you got it, right?” Rose asks. “Like the part about how I L-word—”

“Yes, I got it.” He pauses, jaw clenched. His face flushes red as he detangles himself from his girlfriend.

Rose takes a chance and kisses his jaw as in apology. When she takes his hand again, their palms are hot against one another.

For the first time since high school, she thinks, _You’re in over your head with this guy._

 

* * *

 

Rose avoids the bakery for a week and a half because of a lacrosse game. She only survives, ironically, because she allows herself to pour all of her frustrations into beating up the other team. Her coach is proud of her passion for the sport.

At the end of the game, she’s so fired up and sweaty and high on the win that she bolts off of the field and onto her bike so she can ride straight to the bakery and bust in like a maniac in cleats and _Dezel is there—_

And she can’t think of anything to say.

Dezel _is_ there, and he looks like someone just turned a gun on him. He probably hears Rose’s strangled breathing, but she masks it with a wild grin that shows that she is definitely, very much not ready to collapse in a shop full of bread.

“Rose?” Dezel says, half-shocked. She stalks up toward him. Usually, she likes to prank him with her ability to walk without sound, but she’s too tired to put any effort into it this time and slumps exhausted on the front counter.

“Dezel,” she says, 110% she is way too far in his bubble. Dezel’s shock seems to wear off because he cringes with something that seems like discomfort at the thought of Rose breathing on him. “Dezeeeell.”

“Why are you here?” he asks. There’s something that looks like a sheet of plastic with holes in one hand and something that looks very stabby in his other.

Rose slowly backs away from the counter. “Is this your new method of keeping me away? Look, I’m sorry, man, I just really like being here, and I know I call you an assbaby to my friends but you’re actually pretty cool and I—”

“What?” Dezel stares at her, aghast. He feels the stabby thing in his hand. “What, no this… I thought you were Sorey’s friend, you don’t know what this is?”

Rose’s pile-of-mush for a brain suddenly puts itself together again and she finally recognizes the braille slate and stylus in his hands. Oh, shit, she totally fucked up her reunion with Dezel. He’s probably just doing his homework or something. “Fuck.”

“Are you okay?” he asks. Rose is surprised by the genuine worry in his voice, because Dezel is scowling. Maybe that’s his worried face. Rose wonder what other not-expressions she might have missed. “I’m not going to ask again.”

“Do you have Gatorade?” she asks, taking the chance.

Dezel pours her some ice water that was sitting on the other counter. Rose pours it over her head. Dezel hears ice clatter to the floor and rubs his temples. “I don’t know what I expected.”

“More,” she begs. “For my mouth.”

Dezel, shockingly, pours her another. He grabs her when she moves to dunk it over her head again and forces her to drink it the right way after lots of yelling and struggling. After five whole minutes of their ice water song-and-dance, Rose realizes something.

“You haven’t kicked me out yet,” she breathes. Well, chokes out. Dezel has her in a headlock over the counter.

“Well you’ve contaminated the counter with your sweat and saliva, so you’re not far from that goal,” Dezel tells her and pours the water down her throat.

Rose sputters and chews on the ice. Dezel cringes at the sound of it. “No but you’re keeping me here. You’re taking care of me,” she says. Her eyes fly open. “Oh my god, you were worried about me!”

Dezel pours more water down her throat.

“You like me!” Rose yells as soon as she stops gagging.

“ _What?_ ” Dezel wheezes.

With masterful flexibility, she shimmies out of Dezel grip and swerves to the window. “You took the No Rose sign down! You never took that thing down when I came around here! You want me back!”

“You don’t know that,” Dezel growls, except he didn’t say _My boss made me_ like the last dozen times he’s needed an excuse, so Rose knows he’s lying. She gasps like a dog begging for a treat.

“Does this mean you’ll sell my product?” Rose rambles on, her fatigue fading away. “I’ll give you twenty percent profit! Not including tax.”

“I didn’t take it down because I want to sell your damn muffins.”

“Thirty percent.”

“No.”

“Thirty- _five_.”

“I took it down because I thought I’d hurt your feelings!” Dezel snaps at her, shutting Rose up. He realizes his mistake immediately and turns away. “I’m _sorry_.”

Rose stops. And thinks. And takes it in. And… did  Dezel just apologize to her? Like that Dezel? The one who refused to even speak to her when she was rudely thrown out on the first day? He’s blushing like crazy so this has to be a first for him.

“U-Uh.” Rose thinks she’s blushing too. Oh god. “Okay. Um…” She swallows. “T-Thanks.”

Dezel doesn’t say anything.

“Does… this mean you like having me around?” Rose asks. “Because I’m not joking when I say it’s fun here, y’know.”

“I guess,” Dezel offers. Rose stares at him in silence and leans closers enough that her breath reaches him again. “Okay, _yes_ fine. It gets boring around here.” He sighs. “When you stopped coming, things felt twice as slow as usual and I guess that gave me time to think about y…” He doesn’t finish that sentence. He refuses to. “If you stop trying to make me sell your stuff, you can come around as much as you like.”

It’s a lot to take in, but what Rose gets is: “Holy shit, you _do_ like me.” Rose jumps up and over the front counter, much to Dezel’s shock, so much that he almost stabs her with his stylus. Rose yelps. “ _Ohmygod_ please don’t do that the season’s not over.”

“Don’t— scare me like that.” Dezel steadies his breathing, and okay, maybe Rose is overwhelming. Maybe she’s been pretty overwhelming for the past few weeks, and… wow, she feels kind of guilty about that. “Why the hell did you jump the counter?”

“Because,” Rose says before hugging him.

They’re silent for a moment just like that. Rose’s arms tight around Dezel’s shoulders, Dezel unmoving and breathing shallowly, before Dezel asks, “Because what?”

Because not many people can handle Rose after they’ve decided they dislike her. Because after the business and charm wears off, people don’t like her two-sided personality and steamroller personality. Because she’s fifteen and she’s _trying_ so hard to be someone, and she can’t figure out how to balance herself with the world.

Because Dezel was that person right off the bat and he basically decided that he liked that part of her. That makes her feel more than better. It makes her feel like she’s worth something.

“Because we’re going to be _great_ friends,” Rose says with a teasing grin.

Dezel sighs, but he smiles for two whole seconds. Rose decides she’s not letting this one go.

 

* * *

 

While Dezel’s away at night classes, Rose buys a cake for their monthaversary.

(Of course she’s going to keep saying monthaversary. It’s catchy and cool and she made it up so that automatically makes it worthwhile.)

She buys it at the grocery store and gets one of the expensive special cakes with the strawberries on top. At this point it’s kind of hard to deny how excited she is about this stupid, fake holiday. Not even Sorey and Mikleo had a monthaversary because they’re _guys_ and _stupid_. Stupid guys with 4.0 averages. Whatever, they’re dumb. The point is Dezel is going to love the shit out of this cake.

He eats half of it in one go. Rose is the best girlfriend _ever_.

“My professor wanted to know where I got my tie,” Dezel tells her. He sounds horrified and rueful. Rose is ecstatic.

“I’m gonna sell them online and pay off my student loans,” Rose tells him. They’re sitting in the quad at one of the tables where none of their friends can interrupt their cake celebration. Normally she’d be fine with it, but Dezel loves strawberry cake. He's kind of her boyfriend now so that's pretty important. “People fucking love dogs.”

Dezel grunts in agreement, looking proud of himself. He fucking loves dogs.

“But this one is your dog,” Rose tells him, poking dramatically at the tie. “Because you’re special and love Wham! Don’t deny it.”

“I do not,” Dezel protests.

“Yes you do! You keep their CDs in your room and nobody even uses CDs anymore! I hear you playing them at four in the morning when you’re sad and emo!”

“I don’t get sad and emo!”

“Not if I can help it, Draco Malfoy,” Rose places a hand over her heart. “As long as I have the energy to try, you’ll always be getting the best from me.”

“You don’t have to try.”

There’s a pause after the statement. Rose bites her lip when stretches a second too long. Dezel is serious, because he knows her. Rose almost wishes he didn’t.

With a slight hesitancy, Dezel continues. “I told you when we started dating that you don’t have to do anything different.” He purses his lips and leans forward. “You’re _fine_. That’s why I fell in love with you.”

It looks physically difficult for him to admit that. Rose may or may not be very attracted to him right now, but she is very sure she’s glad he can’t see her face right now.

“Well I started dating you because I didn’t want things to stay the same,” Rose tells him, trying to hide the pout from her voice. She finds Dezel’s hand under the table, and he’s stiff as a rock. Loser. She loves this man. “When are you going to kiss me?”

Dezel chokes. “I’m sorry?”

“I want you to kiss me,” Rose tells him. “And I want you to kiss me like you mean it. Or else I’m going to kiss you and you’re going to _wish_ you’d done it first.”

He doesn’t respond to that.

Dezel doesn’t kiss her, but Rose does stick her elbow into her cake and when she comes back from washing it off, Dezel is gone with a text that just says, _Meet you at home._

“FINE!” Rose screams at the cake. People are staring. “DON’T KISS ME, SEE HOW IT FEELS!”

 

* * *

 

Dezel is her best friend.

Technically, Sorey should be her best friend. But Mikleo is _his_ best friend to some impossible level that she can’t even _touch_ , so it’s not that surprising that Dezel makes the list quite quickly. Sorey seems proud of her rather than crying over the loss of a potential Greatest BFF Ever, which Rose is kind of disappointed by, but whatever. Dezel is the best friend ever.

Because over the next year, Sorey starts becoming cool, Mikleo starts dyeing his hair, Rose adds green streaks to hers, and Dezel graduates, which doesn’t really say much because he’s taking a gap year anyway.

That just means more time for him to help tutor Rose in Spanish because apparently he can speak several languages really well, including Italian. In return, Rose also helps him run errands he can’t normally do by himself and does his finances every one in a while. She also fixes things in his apartment and accompanies him to the local pound for whenever he’s feeling down and in need of puppy companionship.

The thing about Dezel is that he doesn’t mind it when Rose calls at some horrible time of the night to pitch new ideas. As long as it’s not at work, he doesn’t mind if Rose will make him wear Sparrowfeather hats or three-wheeled roller skates. Not that he ever stops complaining about them, but he does so less and less as time goes on. Rose finds that she likes the complaining. Constructive critique.

(It also turns out that Dezel is fairly adequate at punching people who punch Rose in the face, which unfortunately happens a lot.)

Eventually, she starts helping him out at the bakery. It turns out very well.

“I like her,” Velvet The-Even-More-Stoic-Manager tells them. She has the face of a hawk and proudly wears a lacy yellow apron her son Laphicet bought her. “She sells things.”

And Rose, indeed, sells things at the bakery. She sells fucking Bacon Bites, that’s what she sells. Dezel mourns his dignity as they fly off the shelf.

Everything falls into a steady routine. Go to school, kick back at the bakery, help Dezel with plumbing, learn how to buy groceries in Spanish, pitch new products, rinse and repeat with flavor. She likes this routine. It’s a good, _productive_ routine. But the worst thing about setting a routine is that is gets broken at some point, and that point just so happens to be near the end of junior year.

“You got accepted to Hyland?” Rose says in the middle of one of their shifts. “ _Hyland University?_ That’s like crap Sorey and Mikleo would fight _each other_ to get scholarships to, you can’t go to Hyland!”

“I don’t think Sorey and Mikleo would fight each other, ever,” Dezel says. Except he’s _wrong_ because Sorey and Mikleo fought for a whole, horrible month one time because of dependency issues and they were both miserable and the point is _Rose_ is going to be _miserable_ because her best friend is going to be in the _next state over._ “I’ll visit you, Rose.”

He says it with a carefulness he usually saves for customers and other people he’s uncomfortable talking to. Rose wants to grab him by the neck and strangle him until he tells her that he will visit her every weekend and watch all of her games on top of it. In turn she’ll ride the bus for seven hours to embarrass him in front of all of his friends and other cool things they do together.

“I want you to call me,” Rose tells him.

“You act like I don’t know how to do that.”

“Then we have to do something stupid,” Rose says, sitting up straight. “Like… Like pretending to be engaged so we can get free cake at the restaurant downtown!”

“ _Absolutely not_ ,” Dezel says, horrified and looking mildly constipated.

“Go Christmas caroling in the middle of June.”

“No.”

“Adopt ten dogs.”

It takes Dezel a moment of consideration to choke out, “…No.”

“Okay, fine!” Rose says. “You have to eat one of my Bacon Bites.”

Dezel opens his mouth, realizes this is probably his only chance to do something not publically embarrassing. After a moment, he pauses, expression softening into thoughtfulness, and Rose thinks _, Oh, maybe there’s more to it than that._

And it should be a regular moment. Another time when Dezel gives that defeated sigh and agrees to whatever dumb thing she’ll want to do. She’ll give him a one-armed hug that’s more headlock than hug, and then he’ll try to make her remember something in Spanish. Easy.

Except it’s not. Not when she meets Dezel’s eyes at the slight tilt of his glasses falling down his nose. They’re a heavy yet bright grey, swimming with emotion that almost gives them color. When he turns to her, he doesn’t see her, but it all seems to happen in slow motion this particular day. The day of a promise, a small call back, and realizations the slight curve of Dezel’s lips that she almost witnessed.

 _To you_ , she tells herself. _For you. He’s thinking of you._

“Fine,” he says, but it’s not as dismissive as he’s trying to make it to be.

“Alright,” she says, her voice pitched. Dezel’s eyebrows furrow in suspicion. “Okay.” She starts to back out of the bakery. “I’ll get right to that.” And then she slams the door before he can say anything else.

As soon as she’s halfway home, work _and Dezel_ far behind her, she whips out her phone and calls Sorey.

“Sorey I’m going to do something really stupid. Please help me.”

Sorey, out of the goodness of his heart, does not object.

 

* * *

 

When Rose gets back to their apartment, Maotelus is out of his cage and there is a vase of lilies on the table.

She doesn’t see Dezel, who is the only person who is the only person who could have done this. So she softly steps about the living room, wary of his presence. When she reaches the table, she sees a tag on the lilies that just says _No Roses_ in careful braille.

Underneath it says, _I already have one._

That is. That is so— It’s so—

Rose is not crying. She’s not. This is so cheesy and so… so _not Dezel_. He would never do something this sappy. He’s stubborn and prideful and he has no bones for fluff and romance, that’s Rose’s job. Why is he—

“I told the guy at the shop I was getting them for my girlfriend.”

“God!” Rose yelps at Dezel’s sudden appearance. He emerges from the hallway with a hoodie and no glasses, like he usually has when it’s just the two of them. He doesn’t look too embarrassed or even regretful of anything he’s done. Rather, he looks confident. Rose isn’t sure what to say.

“I’m sorry for being a dick to you the first time we met,” Dezel tells her. “I never apologized for that.”

Rose blinks because, no, he didn’t. She didn’t expect him to. He didn’t have to.

“I’ve never had people try so hard to win my approval. It was funny to watch you bounce back every time I fought you out of the store, as annoying as you were.”

“Hey!”

“And I _liked_ hearing your voice every day, okay? I didn’t have very much going for me back then. To be honest I was pretty underconfident. But when you’re there, you never make it seem possible to give up. You always make it sound like I have a choice.”

He takes a breath.

“And I liked watching you get knocked down and discouraged. I liked seeing that you were trying your best. And soon you were trying your best for _me_ , because you liked me and I didn’t… I didn’t know how to handle… how that made me felt.”

Rose feels her breath fall short. She knows what’s coming. She knows it and she’s not ready—

“I’ve always been in love with you,” Dezel tells her, resting his hands on her shoulders. His eyes are closed, and she tilts her head back as his forehead lands on hers. When they touch, he opens his eyes, and she feels his breath against her lips. “I’m sorry I’m scared of messing this up.”

Dezel kisses her before she can say anything else. She’d expected a lot of things when Dezel would first kiss her. Fireworks, cheering, explosions in the background. What she doesn’t expect is silence. A slow, drowning silence that dulls time long enough that she can feel the blood creep up her neck and the tight curl of Dezel’s fingers over her arms. It’s a full-body kiss, one that wraps Rose up in a protective embrace, greedy and thankful. Thankful because this, _Rose_ , is his.

 _This,_ Rose thinks, kissing him again. _This is mine._

He’s not going anywhere.

 

* * *

 

In a tiny bakery on the edge of her hometown, Rose carries a warm bacon muffin to the front counter, heart in her throat. She swallows it down and shoves the muffin into her best friend’s hands.

Dezel takes a breath, ready to eat away the rest of his pride, when he feels something hit the edge of his mouth. There’s a note stuck halfway through the muffin, and when he pulls it out, it’s a simple message in braille.

He stops. “Rose.”

“Yep?”

“Why does your muffin know braille?” His mouth twitches. Rose thinks he’s fighting for composure. “And why is it asking me to prom?”

“Because it wants you to go to prom with her,” Rose tells him, “and to do something crazy with her before you go.”

“You’re crazy,” Dezel says, but he’s definitely holding back a smile this time. It’s not working. Rose loves it.

She loves it.

“Is that a yes?” she asks, voice tight.

“Just because it’s you,” Dezel tells her, and stops fighting his smile.

That’s how she knew.


End file.
